Tag: food

I know, I know it’s ages since I’ve written anything whatsoever, well, things have been rather crazy in this end. I’ve moved countries (twice in the past 6 months) and started a new job while still trying to keep up my freelance graphic design business. I do have some really exciting plans for this blog though, so hopefully there will be time for a bit more writing and also hopefully a little redesign soon!

More on that later, however. Now let’s talk about a new project of mine – making kombucha tea! I started out writing one post on this, but turns out I have a lot to say on the subject. So today we’re just going to focus on the health benefits of kombucha. Next week I’ll be writing more about how to make your own kombucha tea at home, and as a final post in this mini-series, I’ll post a few recipes that shows how you can use kombucha instead of drinking it straight. (more…)

What can you do with glass jars? What can’t you do with glass jars? That washed-out olive jar might look super plain and dull, but then you fill it with new things, and it can brighten the whole kitchen up! These are two of my recent projects with new ways of using and decorating glass jars, as part of Crunchy Betty’s Tuesdays Outside The Box.

Well, here we are. The Christmas holidays have flown by and all of a sudden we’re in 2012 and it’s back to normal, everyday life. For Lasse and me (and I have a feeling we’re not the only ones), New Years means a New Healthy Life. Or, well, at least New Healthy Month. We cutting out nasties for one month – that means no alcohol or coffee and an all vegan raw food diet. So far it’s all working well, you might even see a couple of green smoothie or raw lasagne recipes here some day.

All this healthy eating has gotten me thinking about how this diet will affect my skin. So I did a bit of research about which nutrients are needed for health and beautiful skin and hair. Here are some of the most important ones.

Recently in the Finno-swedish community there has been a craze about blogging recently, since the first official blog award gala took place only a little while back. I do not wish to get in to the politics of this award, instead I shall focus on another blog award that was given to me recently.

Swathy at the Perfect skin care blog was kind enough to award me with this blog award. Thanks so much Swathy! Check out her blog, she has some really nice posts about natural skin care routines.

And now it’s my turn to award blogs. I have to admit that I am not much of a blog reader and I don’t even read 15 blogs (which is how many you’re supposed to give the award to). So instead of trying to force out 15 okay blogs, I will award my top-4 blogs, the ones that I really find worth reading (and don’t forget Swarthy’s blog!).

Crunchy Betty – I do wish I had the wit, insight and crunch that Leslie at Crunchy Betty has. Check out Crunchy betty for a funny and informative blog about having food on your face.

My homemade beauty – Victoria’s blog about homemade skin care has given me lots of tips and information. Thanks for a great blog!

Tes at home – Thai food is one of my favourites! Tes’ blog features heaps of fantastic recipes that have inspired me to many an adventure in the kitchen.

Healthy. Happy. Life. – I am not a vegan, but that’s no reason not to make vegan food. I almost always cook vegetarian (vegan every now and again) because most of the time I find that meat does not really add anything to an already perfect meal. Kathy’s vegan recipe blog has been great inspiration to me and made me use less and less dairy products in my cooking.

Herbal oils are great fun to make, and so versatile! You can use herb oils as such for skin care, hair care or in food. Or you can use it as a base in any recipe that calls for an oil.

To make a herb oil, you just need a plain vegetable oil and some fresh or dried herbs. If you use dried herbs, you can use a bit less, since they shrink when they dry up. As the oil base, try olive, sesame seed, jojoba, almond or possibly rapeseed oil. Dry oils as sunflower seed and thistle oil are not so good, as they have a risk of going rancid from the sunlight. (more…)

As part of the herb serial, I’m going to go through some of my own favorite herbs and flowers, and what they are good for. I shall start today with one of my absolute favorite herbs.

One of the most ignored and disliked herbs is the stinging nettle (Urtica dioica). And why, really? Sure, it might sting you a bit, but just consider all it’s benefits.

Nettles are filled with vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, C, D and iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium), contain about 40% protein and are rich in fiber. It is good for fatty, acne skin and provides shine and strength to hair. All you need to do is soak the nettles in a bit of warm water and the sting will go away.

Today I bought a jar of cold-pressed, ecological coconut oil from Ekolo in Hakaniemi. If you live in Helsinki you should go by there and get some, it’s on special at the moment (still 5.50€/200 ml though). It’s a whole different feeling to have coconut oil that actually smells and tastes like actual coconut!

If you go to Ekolo, be sure to pick up some Balance tea by Oasis as well, seriously the best herb tea in the world! (more…)

Today is the last day of proper fasting. After this Lasse and I will have had four full days of only taking in liquid foods. We decided to stop here, simply because we’re starting to miss solid food, and also Mondays are days when I shoudl be pretty focused so I’d rather have some fruit to chew on.

I have been quite stressed out from school and other stuff lately, which is why there hasn’t been much time to update hildablue. Also not a very good time to be fasting on. The best time to detox would be during holidays, in the summer, when one can relax and focus on oneself. This was not how we did it, though, but it worked well nonetheless.

During our fasting, we have eaten puréed soups and smoothies. For the “soups”, we boiled some veggies, then strained away the water/stock. Then we mixed the veggies, adding hot water until the blend was very smooth. And the stock we drank along the day, inbetween “meals”. (more…)

Yesterday, after two days of raw food we were both feeling a bit tired and off. I haven’t felt especially hungry though. In the evening we decided to make oven baked veggies, because we both craved a hot meal.
Today will be the last day of eating solid foods, and it’s going to be a fruit-only day.

When it comes to drinks, we try to avoid caffeine drinks, and mostly stick to herbal teas. I have been scanning the city for this wonderful tea that I had a while back, Balance by Oasis. I bought it from Ekolo last time but they were out now. It’s a great blend with among other things liquorish root and apple.
Some herbs that are good to drink when fasting: dandelion, chamomile, nettle, pepper mint, liquorish root and rosemary. Just to mention a few.